The liquid crystal display (LCD) is widely used in computing devices and electronic devices such as laptop computers, notebook computers, cell phones, handheld computers, and various kinds of terminals and display units. Typically an LCD operates and is structured as a backlit transmissive display, reflective display, or transflective display.
LCD panels generally include an array of pixels for displaying images. The pixels often each include three or more subpixels, with each subpixel displaying a color (e.g., red, blue, green, and in some instances, white light). To display an image, the appropriate subpixels on the display are rendered transmissive or reflective to light, allowing color-filtered or unfiltered light to pass through each of the transmissive or reflective subpixels and form the image. The subpixels are often arranged in a grid and can be addressed and individually adjusted according to their row and column in the grid. Generally, each subpixel includes a transistor that is controlled according to a row signal and a column signal. For instance, the gate of a transistor in a subpixel may connect to a gate line generally extending in the row direction, and a source of the transistor in the subpixel may connect to a source line generally extending in the column direction. Often, a plurality of the transistors in the same row has gates connected to the same gate line, and a plurality of the transistors in the same column has sources connected to the same source line.
An individual subpixel is typically addressed by turning on that subpixel's transistor through the gate line and transmitting image data relevant to the individual sub-pixel through that subpixel's source line. By repeating this addressing process for each of the pixels in the display, an image may be formed, and by sequentially displaying changing images, video may be displayed.
Some LCDs use transflective pixels, in which a single pixel has both transmissive and reflective portions, but they are typically addressed in a way that stores the same image data on both the transmissive and reflective portions.
The approaches described in this section are approaches that could be pursued, but not necessarily approaches that have been previously conceived or pursued. Therefore, unless otherwise indicated, it should not be assumed that any of the approaches described in this section qualify as prior art merely by virtue of their inclusion in this section.